Jail Lock Downs

It has become common knowledge in the Toronto area that various detention centres are always in lockdown mode on the weekends. Those in custody are there at the behest of the state. They also face criminal charges that may or may not be founded. They cannot, because of their situation, see counsel on their own time. As a result, lawyers have to travel to the jails to see their clients to review disclosure, discuss the case, and dispense legal advice. Because Courts sit during the week, busy lawyers often get out to the jails to see clients on the weekend. Allowing weekend visits, which is the way things are supposed to work, allows the system to run much more efficiently and function the way it supposed to. This is all interfered with when a jail, government run, cannot facilitate private communications with counsel weekend after weekend after weekend for months on end. A lawyer cannot sit in a common meeting room with his or her client while fifteen other inmates and their families sit within earshot and converse. Legal communications as supposed to be private. Police officers are not allowed to sit in when a client calls a lawyer form the station. Nor is anyone else allowed to sit in. There was once a time when weekend lockdowns were rare. Now, they happen all the time. That
counsel are regularly impeded from meeting with clients in a proper way on the
weekend is a reality. The Courts will eventually be called upon to force
a remedy to this situation.